Testimonials
VT Wilderness Weekend at the Peak Survival
A summary by Daniella Priebatsch
August 28 to August 30, 2009
At the end of July I met former British Marine Richard Lee at The Amee Farm, in VT. Richard offered to run a private Wilderness Survival course for me and a group of 8 to 10 friends if I could get enough people interested. On Friday August 28th 11 of us drove to VT from Boston to begin an amazing adventure weekend!
Josh Pearlman, Dave Shoenig, Ben Ruben, Rachel Cole, Daniella Priebatsch, Peter Lee, Charlotte Eccles, Stuart Pomerantz, Josh Goldman, Devin Peterino, Daniel Rabbinowitz
We started our morning on Saturday at 7:30am with breakfast at the barn before heading into the woods. It was raining steadily. Richard had us pack our overnight gear in a pack that we would get later for the night. He told us to bring a day bag with stuff that we might bring on an airplane ex: empty water bottles, no food, no knives or matches, extra layers, etc. We hiked into the woods for about 30 minutes and then stopped while Richard described the scenario. We were in a place crash and were the only survivors. We knew our luggage in the tail end of the plan was somewhere to the southeast, but we didn't know quite where it was. The first thing he had us do was sort through our priorities, which were 1. shelter 2. water 3. fire 4. food. We then broke up into three groups and tacked the problems of shelter, water and fire. Richard, Wes and Stacy moved between the groups giving some guidance. The shelter group got a good start on a lean-to. The water group went through a few ways of getting and purifying water. The fire group learned how to start a fire...in theory. We then regrouped and did a recap of what each group learned.
Next we started a hike up to the top of the mountain (where the warming hut is). On the way Richard taught us about edible plants, pointed out blackberries and raspberries (which we snacked on) and taught us about ways to get flour from White Pine trees. When we got to the top of the mountain around 2pm we snacked on some peanuts from the wreckage and got a 16 oz bottle of water each. We recovered our luggage. We also each got one item recovered from the wreckage that could be useful (mirror, tampon, garbage bag, cloth, etc.)
We then started setting up for the evening. We got a fire started from a flint and a tampon (dry cotton!). The fire was totally awesome, and really boosted people's spirits. We set up a water filtration system with a tripod and three layers of filtration, moss, rocks and charcoal. We set up drying rack to dry wet grass so we could use it as flooring for the shelter. We boiled water in a carved out log with hot rocks, and used the purified water to make crackers from flour (brought in so that we wouldn't kill trees to get White Pine flour). The flour and water mix was cooked on sticks and on rocks around the fire. We also built a shelter. The first shelter was great, until the supporting beam collapsed becuase we were using moss as roofing, and it was too heavy. We then got a new supporting beam and took off the moss and used ferns and a few garbage bags instead. The new shelter was a bit smaller, which meant that five people 'opted' to sleep in the warming hut. It is amazing how much materials and energy it takes to sustain a group in the outdoors.
The main event of the evening was the rabbit dinner. Because it was not rabbit hunting season, Richard had six cute and dead rabbits brought up in a cooler. At about 8pm we started on skinning and gutting the six rabbits. It was a really interesting experience, and the nervous laughter in the beginning soon gave way to determined cutting and skinning of our dinner. Once we had skinned the rabbits we put them on spits and roasted them over the fire. The results were delicious!
We stood around the fire in the rain until about midnight when we retired in the shelter and hut. The next morning we awoke to beautiful clear skies and an amazing view of the valley below. We cleaned up the area and packed our stuff out. On the way we got a lesson in bushwhacking and navigating.
When we returned to the barn we showered up and waled to the General Store for breakfast. After a hearty breakfast Richard gave us a lesson in starting a fire with twigs, and also the basics of animal trapping. We hung out for a bit enjoying being clean and well fed, and then headed back to Boston in the mid afternoon. It was a totally fantastic weekend. It was lovely to be with good friends and teachers, and learn the basics of wilderness survival
